Passing Alex shuts cleanup down

Oil-skimming ships in the Gulf of Mexico steamed to safe refuge because of the rough seas, which likely will last for days. Officials scrambled to reposition boom to protect the coast, and had to remove barges that had been blocking oil from reaching sensitive wetlands.Officials worried the weather could hamper efforts to keep the oil out of Lake Pontchartrain, which so far has not been affected. The brackish body of water, connected to the Gulf by narrow passes, is a recreational haven for metropolitan New Orleans.
The containment system now in place is capturing nearly 1 million gallons per day from the well, which is spewing as much as 2.5 million gallons a day, according to the government's worst-case estimate. So far, between 70.8 million and 137.6 million gallons of oil have spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from the broken BP well, according to government and BP estimates. The higher estimate is enough oil to fill half of New York's Empire State Building with oil.